Most of you are familiar with Carlos Whittaker; he’s a blogger-monster, social media maven, and an up-and-coming recording artist.
I’m lucky too because I can call him a friend.
And that’s why I can take cheap shots at him and feel safe about doing it… like his MySpace page.
But in all honesty, this isn’t a cheap shot at all but rather just a curious question:
Do recording artists (not just Christian I suppose) still need a MySpace to be successful?
Are they still that necessary? Do they have still have a high-return on investment?
His friend list (currently 548) is nothing compared to his follower count on Twitter, and I doubt he engages in the “conversation” (can you have one on MySpace?) on that landing page as he does in Twitterville.
Eh. Who knows.
But, I’m looking for your thoughts.
I still get a few requests now and then for someone to design and/or develop a MySpace page; my answer is always a resounding “No.”
I just think the platform is dying and nothing is going to be able to resurrect this baby from the grave (or at least it’s downward spiral).
And the ROI, from my perspective, is minimal.
Having a 14 and 16 yr old I don’t allow them on myspace, in fact it is blocked. Facebook is a “bit” cleaner. I honestly think Facebook fan page would be better. Just my .02cents
YES! A Facebook PAGE is way better!
(Carlos has this, BTW.)
Actually as someone who manages these spaces for Christian artists for a living, we are still surprised at the usage of Myspace.
While Facebook owns the shared content business (44% of social sharing on the web is done on facebook) Myspace still gets a billion status updates a month and is the number 1 social app (last I checked) on the Android platform.
Is Myspace down? Sure. Is it out? Getting close. Still viable at the moment? Yes.
Wow. Who are you? Have we met before?
been a long time since you commented on any of our properties! how are things going?
Ha Ha Ha. Doing well my friend. It’s been harder to keep up with you since I decided to give this sleeping thing a try once a day.
I have a Ninja & Guy with Girl Hair tab in my reader I should come comment more.
according to the leadership of the music division where I work, yes. there’s no other music-only (as far as I know) place where there’s a decent sized audience. I mean 75 million is still a decent sized audience.
I hear a certain listen threshold will more likely get the attention of the producers. myspace does certainly provide some public metrics regarding popularity.
now that being said, will myspace survive with all of the execs leaving? i guess facebook could fill the void, but…idk.
Eh, my perspective is that it can’t really hurt. I don’t know how many people are actively pursuing finding new musicians on MySpace, but it’s certainly a dwindling market. Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t exactly caught up to MySpace in the music arena, and sites like PureVolume don’t seem to have the traffic that MySpace has (/might still have). If I was a musician, I’d say let’s do it but not spend too much time on it.
I keep mine, because it’s a quick way for people to listen to my tunes & I can send them a link to it. Other than that, it serves me no purpose. I can’t remember the last time I logged into myspace.
I totally agree. Myspace is dying… Quickly.
Is dying? I thought it was dead?
Word. Dead. Past tense.
It’s chilling in the coffin as Friendster.
I’d agree that MySpace is dying as a social networking site. But you’re asking a different question. Where MySpace ceded the social network space to Facebook, they did manage to claim a huge chunk of the music market. At this point that’s still true.
Need proof? Look on the back of a CD. You’ll find urls for the artist’s web site and MySpace. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not some other service. Google any band. Nine times out 10 the first few results are their own site and their MySpace page. Personally, MySpace has become the default place where I know I’ll be able to listen to full songs from a band–it’s more reliable than band’s web sites (where players are often buried, confusing and frequently only play clips). MySpace has become the default place to listen to bands. And I despise MySpace.
What’s truly remarkable is that it only took a few years for this MySpace standard to emerge.
John.
Let me first off say that I hate Myspace; although I still use it because that’s where some of my target audience is. (But with iPhone App only)
Remember Myspace is still the #2 in social networking, pulling in 85,000,000 unique ips a month.
Myspace has some of the younger audience that’s hasn’t switched to Facebook (because that’s where their parents are), and don’t understand Twitter.
I always have to remind myself to go to the audience.
And sometimes that audience is in places with bad design, clumpsy interfaces, and where it lacks social interaction.
Doh.
I meant 58 million. I switched the 8 and 5.
Still a huge number.
Truly I think every artist (besides U2) usually gets a myspace page. Probably because they are very easy to set up, your music is on there, and it is a given that you have a page. I really think a very minimal return on myspace is a positive, but in all reality there is not much strategy or work being put into engaging with the myspace crowd.
I do not see the point of having a myspace page what so ever, I myself have never had one. I stick with one social media site and that is twitter. I barely and rarely use facebook. Hoping that will die soon as well, facebook that is. Suffer the same fate as myspace.
I had a MySpace back in the day. Deleted it soon after because everyone kept modding their page and made themselves look more bada** then they really are.
I don’t think facebook is going anywhere anytime soon. It’s still a great platform and they’ve kept updating themselves which is good. IMHO
I don’t think I’ve been on MySpace since Colbie Caillat put out her first album.
Traffic to myspaces have gone down enormously, but is still significant. It’s a different audience to facebook, and is still an important part of a marketing campaign. But it’s definitely lost it’s place in the priority list.
We haven’t done a custom myspace in a while…
It is interesting that in the past 60 days, I have received a few RFQs to do a redesign on their myspace property. I handed them off to guys who I know can handle the job.
Word John.
Los- get rid of it bro!
I actually chuckle to myself when I see people, not just artists, wasting their time and resources on MySpace. LET. IT. GO.
I can’t answer your question about whether it’s dying or dead or … but in teh UK it is still very much a force that is used and used well by musicians (christian or not).
The most recent, I know of “new name” to come through MySpace is ‘Scouting For Girls’ – whatever you think of their music is irrelevant but the point is they got their deal and current status through MySpace.
Is it dead – for me yes. That doesn’t mean others think so.
I agree. MySpace is D.E.A.D. dead. The facebook “fan pages” is a much better solution. I know you can play music on MySpace but I think if someone is checking out a new artist that many will look towards iTunes or something like that.